Recently, semiconductor devices tend to be highly integrated. In line with the tendency of high integration of semiconductor devices, pattern sizes have been remarkably miniaturized. The patterns are formed through a hard mask or resist forming process, a lithography process, an etching process and the like. When forming the patterns, a variation in the characteristics of the semiconductor devices should be prevented.
However, a variation in a distance between circuits to be formed on a substrate may occur due to processing problems. In particular, such a variation may significantly affect the characteristics of semiconductor devices with miniaturized patterns.